Most Friday mornings, Hungary’s Prime Minister gives an interview on one of the public radio stations. Since the independent media has not had a chance to interview him for several years, these weekly radio interviews provide a rare opportunity for finding out what the leader of the country thinks about current events, how he sees his opponents and any issues at hand.
The transparency law is actually quite mild, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said in his customary Friday morning interview on the public station Kossuth Rádió.
Earlier this week, the parliament's judicial committee already voted in favor of the law designed to cripple the independent media and NGOs. While the ruling party insists that the proposed law is about transparency in public life, in reality, it would make it impossible for independent media outlets and NGOs critical of the government to continue operating.
Orbán said he believed there could be a consensus around the idea that anyone involved in politics in Hungary, whether it be a press outlet or a political party, should be prohibited from accepting funds from abroad. It is not the business of the people to look behind the curtain, the Prime Minister said. He added that he thinks it should be known whose opinion a news item reflects, and so the law is clearly about the interests of the nation. “We might argue about technical details, but there should be agreement on the goal.”
The interview also touched on Ukraine's accelerated EU accession. Orbán said he was confident that people would confirm (through the government's country-wide opinion poll – ed) the government's position, namely that Hungarians do not support Ukraine's accession to the EU. According to the Prime Minister, Ukraine wants to have a million-strong army in place in the long run, and “we, Europeans, will pay for this army instead of strengthening our own Western European armies.” Orbán considers this a serious security risk because Ukraine is an unstable state whose intentions towards us may not always be friendly.
In this context, Orbán also mentioned that
there is intense Ukrainian intelligence activity being carried out in Hungary, adding that “we are ready to counter this.”
He also said that the Hungarian opposition is pro-Ukrainian and wants to force people to support Ukraine's accession to the EU.
A few weeks ago the Ukrainian secret service arrested two people suspected of spying for the Hungarian state, who they claim were involved in the preparations for a military operation to occupy the Ukrainian region of Transcarpathia (which has a sizeable Hungarian minority). Orbán said that Hungary doesn't have anything to do with these individuals.
As we have previoiusly reported, the spying allegations are part of a spy war between Hungary and Ukraine which has been going on for months. Viktor Orbán has previously accused Ukraine of waging a smear campaign against Hungary.
Meanwhile, Fidesz's parliamentary group leader, Máté Kocsis said this week that Hungarian counterintelligence had been aware of individuals in Ukraine who were in contact with Hungarian politicians and a former senior member of the military, and he also added that the Ukrainian state had launched an unprecedented smear campaign against Hungary. Two Ukrainian diplomats had been expelled from Hungary in connection with the case recently.
The Prime Minister also said that the EU's goal with its energy policy is to harm Russia and help Ukraine. The background to this is that the EU intends to completely disconnect itself from Russian energy sources. The roadmap of REPowerEU aims to gradually eliminate Russian oil, gas and nuclear energy from EU markets. The European Commission has asked member states to draw up their respective national plans by the end of the year, outlining how they will contribute to the phasing out of Russian gas, nuclear energy and oil imports, he said.
According to Viktor Orbán, those in Brussels, for example the Germans, are working on making energy more expensive and less accessible. “But we will not allow Brussels to make us pay for its support for Ukraine,” said the Prime Minister.
According to Orbán, if Russian energy imports were to cease, Hungary would have to pay 800 billion forints more each year to replace the gas it receives from Russia. This money is currently distributed to families, but if the Ukrainians' plan were to be implemented,
everyone's electricity bill would double and the heating bills would be quadrupled.
Viktor Orbán avoids critical questions at home. It’s been years since he gave an interview to independent media. However, for several years, most Friday mornings he has been a regular guest on state-owned Kossuth Rádió, where he is interviewed by a lead editor of the public broadcasting service (operating from an annual budget of 320 million euros), who doesn’t shy away from asking questions.